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Ordinarily, the NFL's Coach of the Year trophy adheres to a simple script. It often serves as a type of apology. We regret we underestimated your team in our preseason projections.

On paper, it's a direct trajectory: the coach who engineered the most dramatic resurgence is handed the prize. However, it creates an yearly argument about expectations and whether we're actually honoring superior coaching or just the greatest surprise.

But the current competition is profoundly different. The pool of candidates is exceptionally strong. It has been the year of resurgences. The league has been unpredictable, with reigning conference winners fading and recent underperformers improving collectively. Under an ordinary season, Sean Payton leading the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming front-runner. But in such a wild and thrilling year, he's facing multiple other exceptional coaches.

This is how the ideal vote ought to shake out.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year selectors are fascinated by QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you fix a quarterback, you're halfway to winning the award.

Ben Johnson not only fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the chance to demonstrate his otherworldly talent. Since Week 9, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive EPA per play. That's not a brief surge – it's prolonged excellence. With Johnson, Williams has become more decisive, far less reckless, and has willingly surrendered to the system instead of freelancing. It is an attack designed solely in the coach's image: a bully-ball run game, a consistent dose of play-action and a imaginative passing attack that springs wide-open targets consistently. Williams has taken advantage. And when easy reads haven't been available, he's been capable to spin big plays out of nothing.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a clear offensive vision. Virtually every decision – rebuilding the offensive line, highlighting the tight ends, transforming Williams into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. That's rare for a rookie skipper. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who entered the building with the kind of pressure he did. For two straight offseasons, he was the hottest candidate on the head coaching market. But when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no guarantees. Somehow, Johnson has met expectations – and even surpassed them. He's demonstrated not only to be a scheme dork but the type of culture builder that can breathe fresh energy into an organization.

During a ordinary year, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. But the current isn't a normal campaign!

The area where Johnson's candidacy runs slightly unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently rank in the bottom third in defensive efficiency. They are living on takeaways, and takeaways are notoriously inconsistent. Coaches can emphasise ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the list because the offense is sustainable. He's ranked lower because luck is doing too much of the defensive work. If not for a couple bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins behind. It's been an remarkable turnaround, and the foundation is established for sustained winning. However he falls just short here.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, His Team, Their Record

The Jaguars' coach is in a comparable position to Johnson. He's another rookie head coach who has orchestrated a dramatic resurgence. Over the crucial final weeks of the season, he has his franchise quarterback playing the best all-around football of his professional life. And he's also overseen the transformation of a defense that now ranks fifth in the NFL in EPA per play.

What's more impressively, he has excelled at the leadership stuff, which wasn't a given after his early public appearances and some of his preseason decisions.

The coach took over Jacksonville with an uncommonly inexperienced staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal staff blend of new ideas and veteran savvy, he hired first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jags are stocked with first-timers. That kind of approach is exciting in theory, but frequently fails in reality – with other teams are a cautionary tale – because everyone is figuring out a their job in real-time. Yet he has managed to bring everyone and everything into sync.

Following an initial hot start, there was a chance that the season would veer off the track. A mid-year collapse had the Jags wobbling again. That's typically when coaches overcorrect. Coen did not. Rather, he simplified the approach. The offense stopped chasing explosive plays and started hunting reliable ones. The coach refocused the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and asked Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the conference's number three seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled roster, but he has proven he can get the most out of that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, Seattle Seahawks, Their Record

Every Coach of the Year case has a hinge moment. For Mike Macdonald, it was his quarterback decision.

Moving on from a incumbent, bringing in a new quarterback and partnering him with an innovative offensive coordinator might have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Rather, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the new QB was an MVP front-runner. He has cooled off since that time, dropping to a lower rank in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the schedule, placing him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still